Tag Archive

Beeswax is amazing stuff: hard and strong, but also flexible in the warmth of the hive. Because it takes a lot of resources for the bees to produce it, they’re very frugal with it. The workers have to eat roughly 7kg of nectar and honey to produce 1kg of wax, so they build it only where it’s necessary and in …

In the Northern latitudes, a lot of thinking and planning. Reading. The beginning of a new year is a great, symbolic, time to think of the year ahead: set goals, make plans, get ready to go, start to right some wrongs from the previous year. Our hives are all wood and while it’s generally pretty durable, things do get damaged …

Boy, it’s great to see the back-end of 2018! It’s been quiet around here for good reason: we’ve been trying to figure out if we wanted to continue in this business or just pack it in. It’s been that kind of year. Something that we’ve always been proud of is that we’re generally able to keep our losses in the same …

They’ve been in their new homes at Lemoine Point Farm for exactly a week, and boy have they ever moved in! In case you’re not aware, a nucleus hive (or nuc) is the preferred method for selling colonies in Ontario. It’s a box with four, normally deep, frames: 2 or three frames of brood and a frame of nectar or honey. …

We don’t use smoke when we tend our hives. We never have and I don’t see any reason to start now. It disrupts the hive and can mask all kinds of odours that a beekeeper can use to figure out what’s happening in a hive. It appears that part of our justification for being smoke-free is also inacurrate: “The perception …

What comes to mind when someone says the word “swarm”? Instant death, right? Bees attack and don’t stop stinging, right? What if I told you that a swarm is generally the least aggressive that you’ll ever seen honeybees? No, seriously. A swarm is the colony’s way of creating a new hive: about half of the workers and the queen leave the …

A fascinating piece from The Guardian this morning. Thankfully, while they do happen, hive thefts aren’t exactly common here. Not yet anyway. The Long Read: Bees have become a billion-dollar business. But who would try to steal them? Source: Sticky fingers: The rise of the bee thieves | Brett Murphy | Environment | The Guardian

I got the idea for these from someone on a beekeeping forum a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep track of whom, so I can’t credit him. Printed off, 5 to a letter-sized page, they’re meant to be tacked to the rear of a hive so you can tell with a quick glance what was going on in …